Friday, May 2, 2008

(Craig's story blows up: the core contradiction remains) The New York Times gets it wrong... *again*!

STILL MORE: if you find that his answer below is not entirely clear (quite common) here is a more precise one: Craig: "Ebay acquired 25% of the equity in craigslist from a former employee shareholder in August of 2004. "(answer to 7th question)

EVEN MORE: the "ebay and craigslist forum" heading says a former shareholder sold but Craig has unambiguously said it was really a former employee: "I gave away some equity, some shares to a -- who is now a former employee. (...) the former employee did sell his shares to eBay." (Craig's answer to the 2nd question).

I think you have a significant error. According to ebay's complaint, ebay acquired 28.4% of craigslist in 2004. The 25.01% figure represents ebay's share of craigslist *after the first dilution* which happened in 2005 when craigslist offered stock options to employees. This is explained in the footnote at the bottom of page two of ebay's complaint.

The footnote (bottom of page two) clearly explains that the 25.01% figure was NOT the percentage ebay bought in 2004, but the percentage ebay owned after the first dilution by craigslist (when it offered stock options to employees in 2005).